


Encircled

by PeroxidePirate



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Multiple Partners, PWP, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-29
Updated: 2010-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:02:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/pseuds/PeroxidePirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four perform a major working that has some "harmless but unusual" side effects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Encircled

**Author's Note:**

> As PWPs go, this is fairly tame. But nonetheless, there isn't a plot in sight.

The working is a success, but it leaves all of us drained of power, too tired even to mind-speak: Briar and Sandry are giddy – absurdly so – from making things grow and move, while Tris is still and tense with careful control that seems likely to break at any moment. I'm tense, too, but where Tris is overly brittle, I feel soft and malleable. The four of us are alone: the village kids who agreed to act as spotters must have spooked and run off when the trees began to move. Silly bleaters – it's not like we didn't warn them.

Somehow, I get us all to the nearest inn. There's just one room in the guest house, with one large bed in the middle of the long wall.

“This will be fine. Thank you.” I press a coin into the landlady's hand, and I shut the door.

“Thank the gods,” Sandry says, as she flops onto the center of the bed.

Tris collapses beside her, eyes already sliding closed. I wonder if she'll ever learn when to stop.

Briar and I stand by the door, looking at the bed, then at each other, then away. “I'll take the floor,” we say at the same time.

“Don't be silly.” Sandry scoots closer to Tris. “There's plenty of room.”

Briar moves first, choosing the spot beside Sandry, which leaves me on the end. Good: I'll turn my back to the others, and maybe I can actually get some sleep.

As soon as I sit down, Briar grins and elbows me. “Never thought you'd be sharing a bed with a man, did you?”

“Never dreamed you'd get to share a bed with three women, did you?” I retort. Maybe I'm a little snappish, after all.

His grin widens. “Actually...”

“You're impossible,” Tris interrupts, though she doesn't move or even open her eyes. Sandry gives Briar a shove, and he falls over – intentionally, maybe – landing half across my lap.

“Get off me,” I say, and I push feebly on his other shoulder. It's not much of a shove, but he's relaxed enough to let himself tip back toward Sandry. When he lands in her lap, she giggles and runs her fingers through his short hair.

Though Tris warned us this particular working might have some harmless but unusual side effects, there was no time to ask what. I guess we get to find out now. “How can any of you have the strength to move?” she asks.

“How can you do anything else?” Briar stretches, arching his back, causing the back of his head to rub against Sandry's stomach.

“That tickles!”

“Good.” He reaches up to tweak her nose, then tilts his head fully backwards so he can look at Tris. “The trees had so much energy, and now I have it, and it all wants to go somewhere.”

“Where?” Sandry asks, and just from her voice, I can picture the heat that must be in her eyes.

Briar must hear it, too, because his head snaps up right away. I can tell he's no longer noticing me or even Tris. “You tell me,” he says, voice gone low. Sandry grips his head with both hands, and then he lunges up and catches her mouth in a kiss. She falls onto her back, pulling him with her.

I'm still trying to formulate a complaint – what they do is their business, of course, but Tris and I are right here – when Sandry reaches out and grabs the front of my shirt, pulling me down beside her. Briar's kissing his way down her neck now, still mostly on top of her, but she's looking at me. “Daja,” she says, sliding her hand to the back of her neck.

I've never been able to resist Sandry, in anything, so there's no point in trying now. I kiss her, feeling the softness of her lips as they mold to mine. I don't know where to put my hands; finally I settle for resting my weight on one and caressing her cheek with the other. Then she gives a bereft-sounding sigh, but a moment later, her whole body curls against me, and my legs end up tangled in her skirts. I spare a second to worry that she'll somehow lose control and weave our very clothes together. Instead, stitches dissolve and pieces of fabric wriggle out from between us and make their way to the floor. I want to bend, twist, wrap myself around her and stay that way.

“Coppercurls,” I hear Briar murmur, “you don't even have to move. Just let me...”

“Oh,” Tris answers sharply – she sounds impossibly happy, but no less brittle than before.

Sandry shifts until she's on her side, back against my chest, watching the others. I wrap an arm around her waist, my hand grazing everything I can reach. She glares at Briar's clothes, and they fall away in pieces. He lifts his head long enough to flash her – no, both of us – a grin, and then turns his attention back to Tris.

“Tris?” Sandry reaches for her hand.

“What?” Her voice is tight and high, like a teakettle just before the boil.

“Open your eyes, Tris.”

She does, and gives a little exclamation of surprise at the sight of all of us, naked. She meets Briar's eyes for a long time, and for a moment I think she's going to refuse everything. Then she nods to Briar, turns her head, and locks on Sandry's face. I see her fingers digging into Sandry's palm. “Yes – all right.”

I can't see Sandry's grin, but I know it's there, and I feel her delight in the way her body settles against mine. It just makes her easier to touch.

As Tris's clothes join everything else on the floor, Sandry pulls their clasped hands to her lips and begins to kiss Tris's knuckles. I lean up, over Sandry's shoulder, and kiss whatever I can reach.

Tris works her hand free and wraps it around the back of Sandry's neck. “Kiss me,” she says, and Sandry willingly complies. She moves away from me, closing with the others.

I sit up, resting on my knees and taking in the tableau before me. They're beautiful. Just when I'm starting to feel left out, I feel Briar's hand on my thigh. When he meets my eyes, there's something between a challenge and a promise in his gaze. I grin, catching my tongue between my teeth.

Then he retreats, turning all his attention back to Tris. That's ok. I stretch out, leaning over Sandry to press a kiss to Tris's forehead before falling back to wait. That's the plan, at least, but Tris tilts her head at the last second, and meets my lips with hers.

There's lightning in that kiss: enough power to make me forget everything else; enough that I'll do anything to put my hands and body on her, along with my mouth. It's flesh and magic, Tris's fire and mine, melting together, pounding the brittleness inside her until it breaks in waves of fire, enough to ignite and then snap the wire of tension in me. We float free, and everything is warm and safe and right.

Tris is soft like summer rain, and I'm no more solid than quicksilver. I open my eyes, slowly, to find that I'm lying on my back, close beside her. Sandry and Briar are staring at us from opposite sides of the bed. I have no idea whether they felt it, too, and I don't like to ask. I don't know if I knocked them aside to get closer to Tris; don't know if I hurt them. But when I reach for Sandry, she takes my hand.

When I glance at Briar and Tris, they're staring into each others' eyes. I look back at Sandry, and she kisses me again. Unlike our earlier kisses, this one is almost chaste – but it goes on for a long time. I don't want to let her go.

“All right?” I whisper, when Sandry finally peels her lips away from mine.

“All right,” she echoes, with a smile. Then she slides away from me, climbs over Tris, and stops when she's looking down at Briar. She tweaks his nose.

“I've still got that energy,” he says. “How about you?”

“Oh yes,” Sandry replies, and they begin to move together.

Tris finds my hand with hers.

“Side effects?” I whisper, close to her ear. “Such as uncontrollable lust?”

“Lowered inhibitions, that's all,” she corrects me. “It couldn't create something that's not already there.”

I don't know what to say to that. Tris silently squeezes my fingers, still watching Briar and Sandry. I let my eyes slide closed: for now, I'm content just to listen. But if this – all this – came from us, I wonder what our future holds.


End file.
